Having listened to more Astros baseball than watched this year, I'm curious to know what the dwellers honestly think of the current roster and their possible development. That's all.
Thanks!
Current roster:
(Pitchers) - Not many of them have a repertoire of pitches right now and that is not good for a major league pitcher. A pitcher in the minors can get away with having one good solid pitch, in the majors, it's a matter of time before the league figures you out and you're dead meat. Of the starters, many suffer this malady. A couple have the stuff to compete (Norris, Lyles), but suffer from lack of location on their pitches. Makes both very vunerable to having a hitter wait them out until they get a hitters count. Dallas Keichel (sp?) needs a a little more seasoning and in due time, he'll be a middle to back of the rotation type of pitcher. Could be the next Bob Knepper or a bust like the next Zack Day. Lucas Harrel? He has very good movement on his pitches but he suffers from location problems. Mainly, he leaves the ball up way too much. Instead of pitching North/South with his stuff, he pitches East/West and that makes him more hittable. When he threw that gem in LA, he was keeping his sinker down and with a ton of movement. No one could square him all night. And it was a good hitting LA team at the time. Harrel is an enigma to me, but I fear WYSIWYG with him, meaning he's not going to be anything special (and I hope he makes me eat my words). The bullpen is a bunch of fodder for major league hitters right now because none of them know how to get major league hitters out consistently. On occasion, yes, consistently, no. And therein lies the problem. A good bullpen is a consistent bullpen... not a bullpen that relies on a good stretch of luck or hitters not figuring them out. Overall, I say you got several guys from the entire pitching staff (starters and bullpen), maybe three to four that given the right team, they've be a good help. Other than that, the future is in the minor leagues right now, not in the majors.
(Defense) - this team is woeful on defense and that is a huge liability for a pitching staff. Lack of defense makes for a bad pitching staff. You can have a good staff and great defense makes that staff a great pitching staff. Same holds true for for making a good staff into a bad staff with the lack of defense. I am not kidding when I say this, but there is no one on this team that deserves to be a starter based on their defense. It is one thing to say that they can improve, it's another to see that none of these guys know how to play major league standard defense, and we can't even begin to talk outstanding defense because of it. All these guys, based on defense, are bench players at best. You can hide one or two guys on defense if they produce well on offense, but you can't hide nine players.
(Offense) - Right now, just from a layman's point of view, these guys are trying so hard to keep a job, they just look awful swinging the bat. Several points to make here though. Lineup construction in the MLB is very important. You generally get a good feel for who belongs in run producing slots in the lineup, who is in the OBP slot, who is a contact hitter, who knows how to move a runner over, hit behind a guy, battle a pitcher when a sac fly is needed, etc. Those are all situations that happen in a game and generally speaking, you have to have guys who are used to a certain slot in the lineup to perform those duties. With the Astros, you have a eight #7 hitters filing out a lineup card. That is not good. So can any of these guys ever become the hitters they need to be for the lineup slot they currently posses? No. That is not a harsh assessment, it's more a realistic, give these guys the right team and right slot in a lineup and leave them alone sort of assessment. You can't put a guy at cleanup and expect them to know how to produce there if they do not have the skills nor aptitude to do it. The future for those spots, however, is in the minor leagues.
So overall, you're looking at only a handful that deserve major league *starting* gigs... and that has to be qualified as the *right* sort of gig. But the problem with Houston is not the talent as much as it is the team makeup. You have to make a team into a team by putting guys into roles to succeed. Right now, there is no such thing in Houston. No one has a role, they have a job and they're trying but the league has a way of exposing you and humbling you when you're a fish out of water. And it is made worse when guys try too hard (instead of relax) to do said job they've had thrust upon them.
